"Mike" nospam @ aol.com wrote in message
...
Since all transceivers of this type are limited by the FCC in regards to
how much power they can output(and most of them develop the max power
allowed at about 1.5w nominal) and since all of them come with essentially
identical omnidirectional antennas, I can pretty much assume they will all
have very similar ranges, since obviously the transmitter is going to be
the limiting factor seeing as how the other end is putting out roughly 7db
more power.

There are various ways of measuring the output power of an AM transmitter.
One manufacturer's 1-watt transmitter may be much the same as another
manufacturer's 4-watt transmitter. There are other important issues, such
as the type and quality of the modulation and the audio processing. The
devil is in the details.

Actually, the quality of the receiver is (in general) more important than
transmit power.

In my experience, both Vertex and Icom are good brand names for that type of
equipment.

Vaughn